I have a slightly different view. The statement, “I feel that if we spend the money on print titles we should put the effort in to make sure we are getting what we pay for and that our users know what we have” makes perfect sense. However, if, like many of us, you have limited time and a predominance of e-journals and other e-resources to also manage, and that is where you spend the vast majority of your money, and that is what your users use the most, it makes sense to me to preference troubleshooting e-journals and other e-eresources over devoting time to husbanding a diminishing resource.

Sorry for that very wordy sentence. Essentially, though, doing serials check-in and devoting a lot of time to maintain print journal holdings tends to take a significant amount of staff time. Because staff time is very limited, and if there is a concomitant need to ensure that your e-resources are well-maintained, I’d continue to put my emphasis on the latter, not the former, any day, at any time. If that means ceasing serials check-in to save time to redirect toward e-resources management, I have no scruples in doing so.

Of course, this assumes many things, including that the same staff are involved in both activities.

Steve

Steve Oberg

Assistant Professor and Group Leader for Resource Description and Digital Initiatives

Buswell Library | Wheaton College (IL) | +1 (630) 752-5852

From: <serialst@simplelists.com> on behalf of Mykie Howard <my.howard@moreheadstate.edu>
Reply-To: "serialst@simplelists.com" <serialst@simplelists.com>
Date: Monday, September 14, 2020 at 11:39 AM
To: "serialst@simplelists.com" <serialst@simplelists.com>
Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Do you keep track of what print issues you receive?

Hi,

I agree with LeAnne wholeheartedly:

“I feel that if we spend the money on print titles we should put the effort in to make sure we are getting what we pay for and that our users know what we have.”

Plus, if you are a state institution spending taxpayer money, it’s just the fiscally responsible thing to do. Students can easily check in serials using your online system if you train them. Your ILL person will thank you too.

Mykie

From: serialst@simplelists.com <serialst@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of LeAnne Rumler
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 11:26 AM
To: serialst@simplelists.com
Subject: RE: [SERIALST] Do you keep track of what print issues you receive?

Hi Jason,

Our situation is similar to Judith’s. We purchase fewer print titles each year and, of those, we bind fewer each year as well because they are available online. We are a small college, anyway you look at it, and we check in our print serials with Sierra also. The holdings are automatically updated in the catalog and with the claims function we can track missing issues (although that process has multiple glitches). We then claim them with EBSCO or the publisher. I have an assistant who spends about an hour each day checking in serials and updating records. She also processes our claims.

I feel that if we spend the money on print titles we should put the effort in to make sure we are getting what we pay for and that our users know what we have.

Hope this helps,

LeAnne

LeAnne Rumler

Technical Services Librarian

Mossey Library

Hillsdale College

517-607-2405

From: serialst@simplelists.com <serialst@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of Nagata, Judith
Sent: Monday, September 14, 2020 10:32 AM
To: serialst@simplelists.com
Subject: Re: [SERIALST] Do you keep track of what print issues you receive?

Hi, Jason.

I have been having the same debate about print serials for a couple of years. We are a small to medium college library depending on your definition (e.g. FTE, number of library staff, collection size, size of budget, etc.). Our print serials collection is getting smaller every year as well. We have moved as many titles to online format as we can. We also have made some cancelations especially this year. As of 2021 if all of our cancelations are approved, we will have about 300 print subscriptions (down from about 800+ three years ago when I started). This includes gifts and print titles that come with the online. We do check in all titles (now on a weekly basis but usually on a daily basis) via our ILS, Sierra. Some titles are kept for a short amount of time and some are bound. We do claim but only scholarly or important titles for the collection. I also like having an ILS to help with tracking and maintaining the holdings (even though I manage our OCLC local holdings records myself).

To answer your other question: based on the volume and your staffing, is it worth the time to check in? I think that depends on the priorities of your library. One of our library's technicians checks in print serials. Everything else is done by me. I have been moving as much content to online as possible both by the demand of our students and faculty and for me to manage only one format (since I am working with online serials and databases as well). Unfortunately, some things are either too expensive online, have no permanent access contract or are only available in print. I weigh (with the input of the liaison librarians) the pros/cons of managing the print collection against the management of the online collections.

I am happy to give you our checkin /shelving / bindery procedures if that would help you. Feel free to contact me off list.

Best,

Judith

Judith Nagata

Content Strategist Librarian

Dinand Library

College of the Holy Cross

Worcester, MA 01610

p: 508-793-2639

e: jnagata@holycross.edu

On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 9:54 AM Jason Skoog <jaskooglists@gmail.com> wrote:

For smaller institutions, how do you make sure that you are receiving all your print issues?

We only have about 60 print subscriptions. When new issues arrive, my students stamp and write the volume and issue on the cover, then shelve them. Our catalog holdings for current subscriptions always say, for example, "Vol. 4 No. 5 (1998) - Present." We just have a generic "To Present" for all current subscriptions. We don't update the holdings for each issue, but I'm wondering if we should.

Do you keep check of which issues you receive? Do you check them into a system? Do you write them down in a word document? Or do you trust that they arrive?

It seems like we get all our issues, with maybe a few missing on rare occasions. Every year, we reduce our print collection so I'm not sure how important it is to dedicate time to this.

Thank you,

Jason Skoog

Archives and Systems Librarian
Viterbo University, La Crosse, WI
608-796-3262

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